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My computer suddenly couldn't access some websites anymore like ucla.edu or mrbluesummers.com. When I try and ping those sites it simply returns "General failure." I ran Wireshark and discovered that it first retrieves the IP from DNS (the correct IP BTW) but then, unlike other sites it doesn't send out the ping.

I then tried a bunch of things including: every virus scan known to man, checked hosts file, changed DNS, flushed any and all kinds of caches from TCP stack to browser cache, fiddled with MTU, changed network adapters, changed network, scanned system files, disabled any and all firewalls/securities and more stuff that I'm forgetting right now. None of it worked.

All the other computers in the same network can connect to those sites fine, I booted from a live CD and I could access them, going through a proxy also works. It's just the combination of this windows and those IP addresses that don't work. At this point I know that the easiest solution would be to just re-install Windows but all the digging got me curious and I want to find out what is wrong.

I tried fiddling with the IP addresses I can't access to see if there is any pattern to them, AFAIK only the first 2 bytes matter. Since the failure message was rather specific I was able to write a little program that would ping all combinations of the first 2 bytes in an IPv4 addresses and to record the ones that cause this "general failure". They are as follows:

62.128 | 
62.213 | 
65.52 | 
65.53 | 
65.54 | 
65.55 | 
67.192 | 
94.245 | 
98.129 | 
119.254 | 
119.255 | 
128.32 | 
128.54 | 
128.97 | 
128.111 | 
128.114 | 
128.120 | 
128.125 | 
128.200 | 
128.218 | 
128.221 | 
128.222 | 
128.240 | 
129.65 | 
130.226 | 
131.107 | 
131.179 | 
132.239 | 
132.241 | 
143.127 | 
149.20 | 
149.142 | 
152.62 | 
155.64 | 
157.54 | 
157.56 | 
157.57 | 
157.58 | 
157.59 | 
157.60 | 
161.69 | 
164.67 | 
166.98 | 
167.10 | 
168.159 | 
169.228 | 
169.231 | 
169.233 | 
169.233 | 
169.234 | 
169.235 | 
169.236 | 
169.237 | 
194.30 | 
198.188 | 
204.68 | 
204.95 | 
205.155 | 
207.46 | 
209.85 | 
213.220 | 
216.121

They look rather specific to me, like something a virus would do but why..? The sites those lead to seem extremely random.

relative specs: Windows 7, network card integrated on p9x79, Thomson tg784 router, ADSL2+ connection type

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  • As this isn't a programming issue, it's offtopic for StackOverflow, and better suited to SuperUser.com. Your question will most likely be automatically migrated in short order!
    – Dan Puzey
    Mar 21, 2013 at 10:47
  • 1
    Most likely you have your hosts file edited by a malware.
    – Vesper
    Mar 21, 2013 at 10:48
  • Have you tried checking your windows error logs to see if they have something?
    – prateek61
    Apr 2, 2013 at 11:43
  • 1
    According to his question, he already looked at his hosts file. Given you can get to some sites says your NIC is OK, but possibly misconfigured. Look at your IP settings (ipconfig /all) and maybe run the troubleshooter from Windows.
    – uSlackr
    Oct 10, 2013 at 13:02
  • 1
    Is there some protection(antimalware/antivirus/firewall) in place ? Some of these IPs could have been reported as dangerous
    – maiklos
    Oct 19, 2013 at 7:45

1 Answer 1

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I would check the routing table, if that looks okay, might see if adding a static (non-persistant) route for one of the failing IP targets - give it the lowest metric, and your good default gateway.

another thought: msconfig reboot in minimal mode.. sounds like you already confirmed its not some third party software.. maybe an ip blocker is running, the type used for filtering torrent connections..

hope you figure this out

1
  • Routing table worked. For me, there was a persistent entry of 157.0.0.0 route on a Windows PC causing anything to do with Facebook or its WhatsApp service to be blocked (since Facebook uses 157.0.0.0). Removing the entry solved it. Thank you!
    – wandersick
    Feb 28, 2021 at 9:56

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